Dame Diana Rigg, star of stage and screen, was born on this day in 1938 in Doncaster, England.
The actor got her start on stage, performing in Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle in 1957. Two years later she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Diana Rigg got her big break playing Mrs. Peel on The Avengers and later in life portrayed Olenna Tyrell on Game of Thrones. In between she played the best Bond girl ever, Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, teamed up with Vincent Price in the delightfully gruesome Theatre of Blood (her favorite role) and won a Tony and was nominated for an Olivier for Medea.
I love that Diana Rigg allowed herself to age naturally. Her face as she got older had so much character thanks to not having all the lines and wrinkles smoothed away. She said that she didn’t miss her beauty because she had never relied on it, and that when she saw older women desperately trying to cling to their youth “I want to give them a great big cuddle and say, ‘Don’t put yourself through it. There is a life after being at the pinnacle of your beauty. Plenty of life and fun.'”
Diana Rigg passed away in 2020, at the age of 82. She was a talented actor who gave intelligent, interesting performances and she is missed.